Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [234]
Ryan remembered being in grammar school then—too young to appreciate the complications: It was the fall of a presidential election year, and at the same time Britain and France had decided to invade Egypt to protect their rights with the Suez Canal. Eisenhower had been hamstrung by two simultaneous crises, and had perforce been unable to do much of anything. But America had gotten a good bunch of immigrants out of it. Not a total loss.
"And the local Secret Police?"
"Just down Andrassy Utca from here, number sixty. It's an ordinary-looking building that positively drips with blood. Not as bad now as it used to be. The original lot there were devotees of Iron Feliks, more ruthless than Hitler's Gestapo. But after the failed rebellion, they moderated somewhat and changed their name from Allamvedelmi Osztaly to Allavedelmi Hivatal. State Security Bureau instead of State Security Section. The former boss was replaced, and they got gentler. Formerly, they had a deserved reputation for torture. Supposedly, that is a thing of the past. The reputation alone is enough to make a suspect crumble. Good thing to have a diplomatic passport," Andy concluded.
"How good are they?" Jack asked next.
"Oafish. Perhaps they recruited competent people once, but that is well in the past. Probably a lingering effect of how evil they were in the forties and fifties. Good people don't want to work there and there's no real benefit from doing so, of the kind that KGB can offer its recruits. In fact, this country has some superb universities. They turn out remarkably good engineers and people in the sciences. And the Semmelweis medical school is first-rate."
"Hell, half the guys in the Manhattan Project were Hungarians, weren't they?"
Hudson nodded. "Indeed they were, and many of them Hungarian Jews. Not too many of those left, though in the big war the Hungarians saved about half of theirs. The Chief of State, Admiral Horthy, was probably killed over that—he died under what are euphemistically called 'mysterious circumstances.' Hard to say what sort of chap he actually was, but there is a school of thought that says he was a rabid anti-Communist, but decidedly not a pro-Nazi. Perhaps just a man who picked a bad place and time to be born. We may never know for sure." Hudson enjoyed being a tour guide for a change. Not a bad change of pace from being a king—well, maybe prince—spook.
But it was time to get back to business. "Okay, how are we going to do this?" Jack asked. He was looking around for a tail, but if there was one about, it was invisible to him, unless there was a team of the ubiquitous—dirty—Lada automobiles following them about. He'd have to trust Hudson to scan for that possibility.
"Back to the car. We'll go see the hotel." It was just a few minutes of driving time down Andrassy Utca, a route of remarkably French-style architecture. Ryan had never been to Paris, but, closing his eyes, he thought he might well have been.
"There, that's it," Hudson said, pulling over. One nice thing about communist countries: It wasn't hard to find a parking space.
"Nobody watching us?" Ryan wondered, trying not to look too obvious in his turning around.
"If so, he's being very clever about it. Now, right there across the street is the local KGB station. The Soviet Cultural and Friendship House, sadly lacking in culture or friendship, but we reckon thirty or forty KGB types there—none interested in us," Hudson added. "The average Hungarian would probably rather catch gonorrhea than go inside. Hard to tell you how detested the Soviets are in this country. The locals will take their money and perhaps even shake hands after the money is exchanged, but not much more than that. They remember 1956 here, Jack."
The hotel struck Ryan as something from what H. L. Mencken had called the gilded age—champagne ambition on a beer budget.
"I've stayed in better," Jack observed. It wasn't the Plaza in New York or London's Savoy.
"Our Russian friends probably have not."
Damn. If we get them